Lists & Options

As the holiday season draws to a close, it’s time to grab some solitude and catch up on recent books. Tom Wolfe has published a work of...

As the holiday season draws to a close, it’s time to grab some solitude and catch up on recent books. Tom Wolfe has published a work of fiction after more than five years, and his pre-election support for George W. Bush sets it up interestingly next to Philip Roth’s novel which is being read as a cautionary tale about the re-elected American president. Fictional assessments of elected rulers are something of a theme these days, with Alan Hollinghurst’s Booker Prize winning novel being a critique of the Thatcherite years that has a famous dance scene with the former British prime minister thrown in for good measure. And for those who appreciate critiques but only in the form of facts, Azar Nafisi’s book about novels that enraged the post-revolution regime in Iran comes much recommended.

Topselling fiction at Amazon.com

• Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe
• The Plot Against America: A Novel, by Philip Roth
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,by Mark Haddon
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven, by Mitch Albom
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel,by Susanna Clarke
• The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst
• In the Land of Second Chances, by George Shaffner
• The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
• Middlesex: A Novel, by Jeffrey Eugenides

Bestselling nonfiction in paperback, according to The New York Times

• Friday Night Lights,by H.G. Bissinger
• The 9/11 Commission Report
• Reading Lolita in Tehran,by Azar Nafisi
• Heart Full of Lies, by Ann Rule
• Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
• The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson
• Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom
• Flyboys, by James Bradley
• The Funny Thing Is…, by Ellen DeGeneres
• Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer